Following on from last week one of the outcomes of worm theology is to think of the Christian as ‘just a sinner saved by grace’.
There may be some truth to that statement but theres an awful lot of truth missing – enough to make it wrong. The scriptures repeatedly state in various ways that we are not what we were, that we are new creations, no longer in Adam but in Christ, in fact the letters are addressed not to ‘sinners saved by grace’ but to those who have become ‘saints by grace’! The problem is that in many of the older versions of the Bible many of the letters were addressed to those who were ‘called to be saints’, but the ‘to be’ was in italics which means that it wasn’t in the original.
Now whoever we are, we all live out of our perceived identity, and if we take this as our cue we will always be Romans 7 Christians, and Romans 8 will always be elusive. The flesh will always be the powerhouse of our lives and not the power of the indwelling Spirit of God. My observation as a pastor/minister was that people who thought like this lived this.
Are you a Christian listening to the lies of the enemy? There is a higher truth than your past truth, and it is God’s truth that in Jesus you are a new creation – ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven; you have a new identity as a child of God, you have the Spirit of God dwelling in you saying ‘Abba, Father.’ You have the power to live a different kind of life.
The Word 4 Life 
thank you so much for this. this saying “I am a sinner saved by grace” has been sitting on my though for a long time. it sounds pious, quite relevant and seems to have some valid though.
but the scripture says Christ washed away all my sins. and that His righteousness was imputed to me.
I am going to check romans 7 & 8 in the greek.
good post.
– grace and peace
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This post strikes at the heart of the Gospel. One question that was recently expressed at a conference I attended was, “At what point did Jesus’ disciples become Christians?” That’s honestly something I’d never really given much thought to. He said, ‘Follow Me,’ and they followed Him . . . some more faithfully than others. I believe God does view His children as saints because when He looks at us, He sees not sinful hearts but His Son. It’s a hard concept to get your head around, but on the other hand, we sure do make things harder than they need to be.
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hard truths. the old adam is alive in our body, and the New Creation lives in the same body.
the war is on.
but as far as the Judge is concern, He looks at Christ’s finish work.
the way we die to ourselves is to look unto Christ’s our substitute.
we place our hope in Him, thus faith is substantiated.
it is so important to look away from oneself, we are to deny the flesh of any merit
of good work unto justification.
this is a radical statement.
Faith does not justify us. Christ is our justification.
Grace through faith does not save. Christ is our salvation.
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Thats a good way to put it (Garrick) – the heart of the gospel, and thats something that the enemy seeks continually to undermine, as he has done from the beginning.
Outside of Christ we are sinners, but in him our identity has been changed, and we are now saints. To be a sinner is to be in the first Adam, to be a saint is to be in Christ the last Adam. We are either in one or the other, and whichever we are in is the source of our identity.
Yes its hard to get our heads around, I guess that’s why we constantly need the Spirit’s illuminating and transforming power in our lives, and because till the day we die the enemy will seek to contend it.
May all those who have come to Christ, been born again, believe in him as Saviour and Lord, magnify his glorious grace by living in and out of their new identity.
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